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Thursday, September 15, 2011

Random Movies I Like: Hero

Long before Subhash Ghai fell to the lure of ticket prices
in dollars, he made bloody entertaining movies. Epic tales of love and revenge
seared across 70 mm screens to the accompaniment of loud, hummable music from
Laxmikant Pyarelal. I mention LP here because – coincidentally or otherwise –
Ghai lost his touch when he shifted composers to Nadeem-Shravan or even AR
Rehman.

The first film he produced exemplified his brand of
filmmaking that was so entertaining that it did not need stars to pull off.

Hero starred an unkempt Jackie Shroff (in his first leading
role) and a kempt Meenakshi Sheshadri (in her second leading role) in a film
that was packed with stars character artistes – Shammi Kapoor (as the stern
patriarch), Sanjeev Kumar (as the poetically-inclined comical police officer),
Bindu (as the sex-obsessed widowed bua),
Shakti Kapoor (as a second villain), Madan Puri (as the good Punjabi Samaritan)
and – above all – Amrish Puri. Even Manek Irani – the standard issue side-villain
appearing in the first-fight-to-establish-hero – was also there.

There was also Subhash Ghai, who made his first
cameo-as-prerogative-of-director appearance in Hero and continued to appear in
subsequent films – always looking bewildered, usually mouthing inane choruses
in songs!

Pasha (Amrish Puri) is likely to get hanged due to a
testimony from Commissioner Mathur (Shammi Kapoor). He gets this trusted henchman,
Jackie, to kidnap Commissioner’s daughter to use her as leverage. Needless to
say, they fall in love – thus running afoul of both Amrish and Shammi – and
that populates the first half. The whole process of Jackie’s reform to become
Jaikishan and win his lady love back formed the other half of the movie.

There was a ‘sad song of separation’ – Lambi
judaai (which always got mispronounced in engineering colleges)

And there was the Hero flute
theme. That got introduced when villainous king-pin Pasha promised an
impoverished flute-seller lots of money if he played well. When he collapsed in
an asthmatic attack, his son picked up the baton and played on. The father
died, son cried and – instead of Inky Pinky Ponky – became a criminal under the
evil influence of Pasha ki Bhasha.

And as Pasha ki Bhasha indicates, Amrish Puri – in his prime
– was a villain like no other. A good villain – complete with outlandish
costume, bad wig, menacing mannerisms and an elaborate den – can lift a movie
many notches. In these days of missing villains and wimpy Chhedi Singhs, we
seem to have forgotten that.

Shakti Kapoor went from an innocent NRI to a
cocaine-snorting pervert in a flash, with only a brief stop as a world-class
sport-biker!

Even Billa – the muscle-bound, goofy-grinning punter – who
got beaten up in the first scene to establish Jackie-dada as a Robin Hood was
one menacing bugger. He returned later to thulp Jaikishan and caused serious
damage.

If you must know,
Jackie was marrying off a wimpy Bengali school-teacher against the wishes of
the bride’s family. *Note to self: Write an Open Letter to a Punjabi Filmmaker*

It had rocking action – without CGI to flip cars in the air.

The climax – for which Jackie got off from a hospital bed
and drove a bike through the rains – was long and strong. Even the interim
action scenes were gritty. There was a bike race, which – despite its
predictability – was full-on adrenaline.

And then, there was the most patriotic scene in Hindi cinema
ever, beating even Gadar by many miles.

Meenakshi’s suitor, Shakti Kappoor (the curiously named
Jimmy Thapa), meets her lover, Jackie for the first time and does all the
things villains are supposed to do. He makes fun of his job (a mechanic in a
motorcycle factory - "labour class"), tries to lalkar
his khuddaari and finally kicks his
'Indian' motorcycle down. As he gets into his convertible, Jackie blocks the way in a
good-natured manner and thumps the bonnet badly enough to put a million dents
on it. He then says, Gaadi toh aapki videshi hain, sahab, lekin haath zara
Hindustani pad gaya…
TAALIYAAN!!! SEETTIII!!!